Using a thin optical fiber, scientists have every chance to look into the deepest areas of the brain actual mouse, as if through a keyhole. Not so long ago, the implemented methods of holographic control of light propagation in difficult environments make it possible to use multimode fiber as a visualization tool. Based on this new scenario, researchers came up with a compact system for fluorescence imaging on the fiber tip, offering a much smallest footprint, and inflated the permission compared to normal endoscopes on the basis of Bundles of fibers or graded index lenses.

” We are quite happy to see that our development is preparing the 1st steps on the way to practical use in neuroscience, " says Dr. Sergey Turtaev from Leibniz IPHT, the main Creator of the note. ”For the first time we have recommended, in fact, that it is possible to study the deepest areas of the brain model of a living animal a little invasive technique and at the same time to obtain images with the highest resolution",-adds the scientist IPHT Dr. Ivo T. Leyte. Sergey and Ivo are working in the research group at the holographic endoscopy under the control of IPHT research scientist Dr. Tomas Cizmar who invented the holographic method of imaging through a single fiber. Applying this alignment, the research group was able to obtain images of brain cells and neuronal processes in the visual cortex and hippocampus of living mice with a resolution approaching 1 micrometer (ie, a thousand one less than a millimeter). Thorough research in these areas is crucial for the study of sensory perception, memory formation, and languid neuronal diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Modern methods of study are considered to be strongly invasive, such as the fact that it is impossible to monitor neural networks in these internal areas at work without the cumbersome destruction of the tissue around – ordinary endoscopes consisting of hundreds of optical fibers, very large, in order to get into these sensitive areas of the brain, while the neuronal structures are very small, in order to be visualized by non-invasive imaging methods, these as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

” This little invasive alignment will allow neuroscientists to study the functions of neurons in the fundamental structures of the brain of animals: without breaking the neural circuits in action, it will be possible to detect the energy of these neuronal circuits, while the cattle explores the environment around or explores a fresh problem, " explains the plan companion Dr. Natalie Rochefort of the Edinburgh Institute.

Increasing this work, the research team now wants to solve the current difficulties of neuroscience, which will entail the delivery of modern microscopy techniques with the support of single-layer endoscopes. ” Under the flag "Photonics for life" Leibniz-IPHT and in part funded by the European research Council plan LIFEGATE, we will become persistently work in order to cook more important achievements in this result, essentially directing advanced methods progressive microscopy in depth inside the tissues of living and functioning organisms."- concludes Dr. Tomas Čižmár.